Re: api docs, java source

[Vincent Fourmond <fourmond@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Pablo Duboue <pablo.duboue@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 4:16 AM, Matthew Johnson <mjj29@debian.org> wrote:
>> On Wed Dec 16 03:58, Pablo Duboue wrote:
>>> What about having -dbg versions of the jars that include the source code and
>>> debug information?
>>
>> Java policy says (or will say) that  we should leave debugging symbols
>> in the release version (don't compile with -g) anyway. As was said
>> upthread, there's always apt-get source.
>
> apt-get source is neither convenient nor reasonable, particularly with
> jars that are the
> result of complex builds involving ant, maven, etc. If there are -dbg
> for other libraries
> why they can't be -dbg for java ones? Besides the source code, having
> the line number
> information, methods, etc. makes a big difference when examining stack
> traces.

  I think you are mistaken here. The -dbg packages do not provide
source code. I don't see why - if we decide to provide -dbg packages
for java code, it should have the source code. If you're debugging a
program that depends on a library, you're only interested in the
function call (in the stack trace). If you're debugging the program
included in the package, you should compile it yourself from source
and include the relevant debugging information, and not use the
version from the debian package. I don't see the need for packages
with source code here. It would just add more work to java maintainers
and take more room in the archive.

  I don't do much java debugging, but my guess is that if you only
need stack traces for «system libraries», then you don't need
additional debugging information.

  The -dbg packages are nearly only useful to add the information
about function parameters to stack traces, which C can't guess by
itself. I don't know how to turn that on with java, but I guess source
code isn't necessary.

  Cheers,

      Vincent